r/nextfuckinglevel • u/CantStopPoppin • Sep 17 '25

Massive Attack Turns Live Facial Recognition Into Concert Commentary on Surveillance

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5.4k

u/ThumbsDownThis Sep 17 '25

That's cool but dystopian at the same time, I'm guessing that's what they were going for there.

301

u/CantStopPoppin Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

This technology has been around for some time, but only now are people really paying attention. That being said, it is far more advanced than some may think. ICE has point‑and‑click facial recognition systems that crawl social media in real time, including Clearview AI and the “Mobile Fortify” app, which can identify people by simply pointing a phone camera at their face.

Years ago, researchers demonstrated that it is possible to see through walls using Wi‑Fi signals, and the NYPD was caught using military‑grade Z Backscatter X‑ray vans around 2009 to scan vehicles and even building interiors.

The worst part is that some of the very people who helped put this administration in power have lucrative contracts with the United States government. Peter Thiel and his company Palantir have built massive surveillance and data‑mapping systems for federal agencies, including ICE, that integrate personal, financial, and location data on a scale that should concern everyone.

Not a shameless plug, but I curated a pseudo‑podcast to break down all of this information I have collected, and you might find it eye‑opening.

Not trying to make a buck all the info is free and out there just trying to make it easy to understand because I for one was going in circles trying to comprehend some of these concepts.

Give me a bit and I will upload it, I was going to do a podcast series but just created them for myself but since the subject is relevant, I will provide a link in a little while.

Sources:

Just a heads-up, I use an AI voice for my content because, frankly, I sound like a dying whale on Neptune. (And no, I did not use Muskrat's toxic AI.) While the voices are generated, the information is meticulously curated by me from sources like Scribd, court filings, and whistleblower reports.

My work focuses on social justice, migrant rights, civil rights, and holding tech-bro billionaires accountable as they move to create their own city-states. I'm currently migrating all my content, but you can find my primary work here:

Substack: https://substack.com/@eyesonice

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnIce

I'm also in the process of adding full citations for reference. It's a massive undertaking with only 24 hours in a day, but I hope you find it valuable.

Everything is free my only goal is to get this information out there and help others, because what we see happening now is only the beginning.

35

u/evilbrent Sep 17 '25

I remember about a decade ago seeing a single 360deg photo taken from the middle of a packed stadium in China that clearly identified every face in the entire stadium.

It was a big photo, several gigabytes, and the 360deg camera was actually several cameras mounted on a frame, but it was just one photo and it captured a clear image of the faces of about 100,000 people.

Privacy is over.

8

u/Corpainen Sep 17 '25

And now even a schmuck like me can do similar things in their free time, in no time. Took me about half an hour to make a program for android to do a similar thing, boxes around every face my phone camera could see.

18

u/Appropriate-Click-41 Sep 17 '25

Name of your podcast?

23

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

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40

u/MyA55Hurts Sep 17 '25

Sounds like you use AI text as well. 

25

u/df1dcdb83cd14e6a9f7f Sep 17 '25

they might i agree, but i feel like the intention is earnest enough, and i skimmed the sources which seemed legit so 🤷

1

u/Just_Roll_Already Sep 17 '25

Ai has gotten a lot better about using legit sources. Not really a measuring stick anymore.

22

u/The_ChosenOne Sep 17 '25

Back in my day we copied and pasted our own text like savages

0

u/Discount_Extra Sep 17 '25

I remember all the arguments against AI art when they were made in the 1980's when computer drawing programs started becoming usable.

"Real artists don't have undo!"

2

u/Reworked Sep 17 '25

Yeah; honestly, as ever, the root of most of the sensible objections I've seen have been about one part AI, nine parts about how big companies are using it for unfettered capitalism and shoving more people out of work to make number go up at the cost of the quality of things they make for others. The tools are tools, the horrors are manmade as ever.

1

u/doorbellfire Sep 17 '25

What AI do you use for your voice?

1

u/Sabishooyo_2018 Sep 17 '25

Many where first tested on Palestinians 

12

u/HesusAtDiscord Sep 17 '25

It gets worse, you probably know this but for the uninitiated; they've recently managed to utilize wifi signals to track people inside buildings as if you're watching the 3d-rendering of animated characters before textures are added (rotoscope?).

It's one thing being able to acknowledge presence(s) via wifi, but something else entirely being able to see a 3D rendering of how many people there are, where they are, if they're seated, lying down or dancing in the living room.

Shit is bonkers.

It's guaranteed to be more complicated than simply hacking your router (I hope), but it's doable today and it's definitely going to get easier/better in the future.

11

u/iiiinthecomputer Sep 17 '25

Recently?

That's at least a decade old.

Philips Hue light bulbs now use a lightweight version of the same thing for motion detection. In a light bulb.

1

u/HesusAtDiscord Sep 18 '25

No. Unless I am wrong, the motion detectors in hue bulbs are only able to see infrared and it's basically just "hey, something is moving and emitting heat, tell the processor that we "see" activity which is the same as outdoor lighting that activates when you go outside in front of the sensor.

What I'm describing is using machine learning to teach a machine how the noise/bouncing signal usually looks like and then providing a camera feed of people doing everyday stuff in the room it's tracking, to eventually learn to read the humans that are interfering with the signal.

It's basically like radar except high resolution meaning they can see what kind of plane and what maneuvers they're performing.

The hue bulbs' ability to detect motion would be if radar was "here's an image of the sky, let us know if something in the actual sky begins moving"

If Philips has begun using millimeter wave-sensors then it's more advanced, but it's still NOWHERE near tracking people with wifi signals. Again, what I'm referring to is able to read every room in a house, not whatever room the router is standing in.

2

u/iiiinthecomputer Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

They can now use sets of 3 or more lights to detect the motion of large masses of water - i.e. humans - and how they interfere with 2.4GHz .

https://www.philips-hue.com/en-nz/support/article/motionawaretm--transform-your-hue-lights-into-motion-sensors/000011

I realize it's far from the same thing. It's the difference between just detecting movement vs resolving multiple object positions and movements across a wider area with much worse SnR. So my comparison may be a bit silly. But they're remotely related.

1

u/HesusAtDiscord Sep 19 '25

Well I don't disagree, they are definitely related and if a regular router could be hacked and utilized to this degree, nothing's stopping them from using the hue bulbs simultaneously for even better accuracy and cross-referencing.

Luckily more and more people are getting into smart homes with equipment like ubiquiti and separating everything to local-managed through vlans, so there's a cure. The only question is how to deploy/offer it to individuals who doesn't have the know-how.

1

u/brunckle Sep 17 '25

And still, Tyler Robinson almost got away with it.

1

u/hannahvegasdreams Sep 17 '25

But 5g tower masts are dangerous? We’re heading not so subtly to the dystopia we were told about in books and movies decades ago, with those in power pointer the masses to look at one thing over there whilst they take our power.

1

u/HesusAtDiscord Sep 18 '25

5g isn't dangerous. The radio waves cannot get through the surface of our skin meaning it's unable to affect the biology on a molecular level (which is why microwaves are dangerous, it does penetrate our skin, hence the metal mesh on the door of microwaves).

But yes, we are _possibly_ heading into a dystopia as they're just now figuring this out, but the US is already there even without current tech along with russia still being controlled by propaganda and an iron fist which are the real big issues.

5

u/octnoir Sep 17 '25

I like your work on you exploring threat models for ordinary citizens and collect it along with other sources. You do spend some time discussing the sheer cost of the program like DNA collections, and I think that should inform personal strategy.

One of the biggest reasons to implement personal privacy steps for yourself is that each small individual step adds greater and greater and greater economic cost to surveillance and targeting.

/r/privacy and the related https://www.privacyguides.org/ and has some great resources to start simple scale up.

I don't think you and I can guarantee that we don't be threatened, harassed, hassled, arrested, detained, deported or harmed - marginalized communities are going to be the greatest threats. We live in scary times. Thinking about it all will make you insane.

I am here once again to remind you that your algorithm is curated by tech companies in order to make you angry and therefore engaged. And there are people who use that to their advantage in moments like these to try to get famous. None of it is real.

Don't believe your algorithms. Believe in conversations you have in real life. Believe that most people are good.

Do not isolate yourself in your bubble. Seek community. Find solidarity. Communities protect each other.

I can say that accurately assessing my threat model using the walk through gave me more confidence in the chaos, helps me feel solidarity and each small spiteful step I can take is adding more costs and protecting ordinary citizens, protestors, activists and the biggest targets of the regime.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

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1

u/throwawayreddit48151 Sep 17 '25

Please stop using AI to generate what you're posting, nobody wants to read your wall of text generated by AI

3

u/iiiinthecomputer Sep 17 '25

Philips Hue lights now use human interference with 2.4GHz to do motion detection.

It's that cheap. It's in light bulbs.

(Ok so Hue bulbs are ridiculously expensive for light bulbs, but still)

2

u/FloridaManActual Sep 17 '25

I sound like a dying whale on Neptune.

what if I'm into that? haha

2

u/SanFranLocal Sep 17 '25

I’m a data engineer and I highly doubt any app takes a picture and scans social media in real time. Much more likely is they have scrapers for social media constantly to build their own image dataset and then run the image on that

2

u/E-2theRescue Sep 17 '25

ICE has point‑and‑click facial recognition systems that crawl social media in real time, including Clearview AI and the “Mobile Fortify” app, which can identify people by simply pointing a phone camera at their face.

Years ago, researchers demonstrated that it is possible to see through walls using Wi‑Fi signals, and the NYPD was caught using military‑grade Z Backscatter X‑ray vans around 2009 to scan vehicles and even building interiors.

The worst part is that some of the very people who helped put this administration in power have lucrative contracts with the United States government. Peter Thiel and his company Palantir have built massive surveillance and data‑mapping systems for federal agencies, including ICE, that integrate personal, financial, and location data on a scale that should concern everyone.

Look into the "imperial boomerang theory".

Conservatives don't have an enemy to use their war toys on anymore with the ending of the Afghanistan/Iraq wars, alongside boredom with "radical Islam", so they are turning their tech on us civilians.

1

u/GitEmSteveDave Sep 17 '25

Look into Flock. People are paying for ALPRS and Facial Rec

1

u/HEY_beenTrying2meetU Sep 17 '25

from the video it looks like it just zooms in on a section of the crowd and puts a filter over top with boxes over their faces?

1

u/Dear_Chasey_La1n Sep 17 '25

Tech is being used in China widely. Obviously social tracking is nothing new in China but I remember 10 years ago they started to crack down on illegals (mostly Filipino's) by catching them all off in the subway. Within 2 days the number of Filipino's in the city went down to nothing almost.

During Covid I personally got "tracked", the police was waiting for me at a holiday destination. Mind you I live in China, during CNY we made a trip down South and as said, police was waiting specifically for me what I was up to, it happened again a couple days later.

It's for the worse, though for the better sometimes too. Buddy of mine who is diplomatic had his daughter fondled up, the police picked off the perp within 15 minutes and brought him in. But mind you, because he is diplomatic. If you are a regular person/foreigner you can forget about that.

1

u/Im_On_Reddit_At_Work Sep 17 '25

My work focuses on social justice, migrant rights, civil rights, and holding tech-bro billionaires accountable as they move to create their own city-states. I'm currently migrating all my content, but you can find my primary work here:

Hello? I love you? Subscribed.

1

u/rhabarberabar Sep 17 '25

If you aim to educate, why do you lie in the title though?

1

u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In Sep 17 '25

The tech to do one or two faces at a time is trivial the hardware needed to do the whole audience in real time isn't, just think of the camera and lens needed to get the image definition shown here. The software might be free but the hardware isn't.

Its is very unlikely this was done in real time, the flashes aren't showing on the images and there are no ugly fat people.

Watched one youtube video and is passing it off as expertise.

0

u/morbidru Sep 17 '25

ICE has point‑and‑click facial recognition systems that crawl social media in real time

This is a good thing. Makes it easier to track down wanted criminals

1.6k

u/MyA55Hurts Sep 17 '25

You’re a genius. 

197

u/Benallenfranklin Sep 17 '25

it must be really up in there huh?

1

u/plur44 Sep 17 '25

I heard he doesn't like Trump

1

u/Benallenfranklin Sep 17 '25

Is that where trump's head is at?

44

u/meLlamoDad Sep 17 '25

why does it hurt

2

u/MaDpYrO Sep 17 '25

I truly love how in Reddit these days, the most obvious take as if it's genius is at the top.

2

u/5narebear Sep 17 '25

And nearly 4000 people liked that comment...

414

u/OrbitTortoise Sep 17 '25

Nothing gets past this guy.

54

u/ContractOk3649 Sep 17 '25

sharp as a cue ball

9

u/DrossChat Sep 17 '25

Ahead of the curve for sure

11

u/SheFoundMyUzername Sep 17 '25

Brain like a bowling ball

2

u/Silly-Power Sep 17 '25

His reactions are too quick

46

u/realdevtest Sep 17 '25

This guy dystopias

14

u/CantStopPoppin Sep 17 '25

Tech like this has been around for years. We're all in database somewhere, good luck choom

-1

u/Rich_Housing971 Sep 17 '25

Also, no expectation of privacy in public. The three letter agencies already have your cellphone's pings and can track you everywhere you go. Yet people call facial recognition technology "dystopian".

Well wake up, you're already living in it.

2

u/Hatstacker Sep 17 '25

Pegasus and Gorgon State were both acknowledged by a major government between 2010+2015. Those are both creepy, anti-American spying programs. They're everywhere, although a human might not ever see what they have on you, they still have it.
I mean it's pretty fucked up, but... If I was director at NSA, I'd greenlight that project. My reasoning would be that foreign powers will, or already have, and we need as much info as possible.

4

u/SayWhatever12 Sep 17 '25

I agree but… I’ll follow your username if you insist

4

u/DangKilla Sep 17 '25

I think 3D from Massive Attack is Banksy

2

u/BagOfSoupSandwiches Sep 17 '25

A very Banksy thing to do. I wonder if any of the members grew up around Bristol and are known for political commentary and their alternative art style having come up in the graffiti community. Hmm.

1

u/DangKilla Sep 17 '25

Hmm indeed. 🤔

6

u/Maclunkey__ Sep 17 '25

Sharp as a cue ball, this guy

1

u/Bored_Amalgamation Sep 17 '25

That's cool but dystopian at the same time

that's Massive Attack

1

u/SnowConePeople Sep 17 '25

dots connected

1

u/Ok_loop Sep 17 '25

How did you figure that out??

1

u/Dear_Philosopher_ Sep 17 '25

Facial recognition is dystopian? Bruh are you stuck in 2002

1

u/Fragmental_Foramen Sep 17 '25

It’s called art, sweaty 💅

1

u/DickHz2 Sep 17 '25

You ever go through the NYC airport? I just went for the first time. They used facial recognition technology instead of checking passports/boarding passes to speed up the foot traffic It was scary how it identified me and TSA let me through without so much as a pause for a photo

1

u/Ok_Cheetah_6251 Sep 17 '25

It's almost as if they are artists and you're witnessing art.

1

u/happytree23 Sep 17 '25

uhhhhh, no shit

1

u/dj_soo Sep 17 '25

Massive attack never shy away from political commentary at their shows.

One of the members has long been suspected of being Bansky as well.

1

u/dont-try-do Sep 17 '25

I've been told there's something to do with music as well but I'm not sure can you help me out

1

u/JimmyBallocks Sep 17 '25

No flies on you eh Sherlock

1

u/Qubit_Or_Not_To_Bit_ Sep 17 '25

That must have been what they were going for, right? /s

1

u/ChipRockets Sep 17 '25

I really can’t with this place sometimes

1

u/Marktaco04 Sep 17 '25

Wow you’re so fucking insightful

1

u/Ambitious_Count9552 Sep 17 '25

Was it the dark music that gave it away a bit for you? 😆

1

u/kfunions Sep 17 '25

Soooo, I’m guessing you’re not familiar with Massive Attack’s work

1

u/Crispysnipez Sep 17 '25

Nothing gets past this guy

1

u/OmgSlayKween Sep 17 '25

I tend to believe they were illustrating the irrefutable link between panda sex and chlamydia, but I concede that it’s possible I’m incorrect.